Danalex Graphic Arts and Call Center

At this stage of website development, the webmaster uses a variety of design and programming skills to assemble all of the elements in an attractive and interesting way.

Special care is used to make sure that the information presented appears in its proper position on the page regardless of the size of the prospect’s monitor or browser used.

Complicated forms are programmed for prospects to request information, and auto response pages are designed so that prospects can make a copy of their filled-in information request form.

Internal site search engines must also be programmed to provide the specific information requested.

Only those special effects recognized by the major browsers are utilized to assure that the website works properly for all viewers. More than one programming technique is often available to accomplish a special effect, animated graphic or moving ticker.

A variety of methods can also be used to help visitors move easily back and forth between pages.

Once the pages have been programmed and reviewed by the design staff, the site is uploaded to the web server’s computer in a secure area not available to the public, ready for client review.

As companies grow and expand, and as their products and services change, their websites often remain the same. It doesn’t reflect the true nature of the business as it now stands.

These are just a few of the features that can enhance the effectiveness of your website.

Do you feel that the number of inquiries from your site has dropped off? Are you getting the interest that you think your site deserves?

The next step is to resubmit the site to the search engines and directories. We use both manual and automated techniques.

Productive Internet Marketing Can Succeed Without Search Engines

Ten is the limit

Two essentials for success

Keep it simple

An extra benefit

Although this article is about succeeding on the Internet without relying on search engines, anyone who pursues linking for the purpose of attracting customers will find their websites improving in the search engine rresults.

Just as with a beautiful well-designed full-color sales brochure, your Website must be seen by the right prospects to be effective.And, in addition to designing the site to get results once a prospect is there, a number of steps should be considered to make sure that those prospects with a genuine interest in your products or services actually find your location.

Here is a list of steps which can enhance the productivity of your Website:

1. Add your Web address to your letterheads, business cards and other stationery.

2. Add your Web address to all of your sales literature, advertisements…every promotion piece you produce. Place ads on other related sites with links to your pages.

3. Contact appropriate vendors, manufacturers which you may represent, and others who could link their site to yours. It might even be appropriate to reciprocate with a link to their sites as long as it didn’t lead prospects to a competitor. There are ways to design your pages so that when a visitor to your site links to another site, there is an easy return to your pages.

4. Prepare a special letter, announcement, postcard or direct mail piece to tell prospects about your Web location and why they should be interested in viewing it. Including a few pages of “reference” material in your Website is often a good idea. It provides a tangible reason to ask people to visit the site in order to see these special pages. It’s also a reason some people will return to your site.

5. Have your Web site submitted to all of the leading search engines…Google, Yahoo, MSN, Excite, WebCrawler, Go/Infoseek, AltaVista, Lycos, Snap, Look Smart, Hot Bot, Go, etc. There are thousands of them in all, and more being developed all the time. A dozen or two could be important to the success of your Web site. A few use special programs to search the internet, look at all of the different sites, and index the information presented. Many do nothing. And even those that do, don’t always pick up the key words that make locating your site effective. Waiting for those “spiders” to search the Web can often take months.

It is also advisable to update these announcements, and to repeat them periodically to keep your Web site listing closer to the top of the results the search engine produces.

A variety of submissions, with a different emphasis, is also recommended when your company offers more than one distinct service. Possibly you have both retail and industrial products, or your company has specialty services for certain industry segments. Maybe you offer a top-of-the-line top-of-the-price line of products, plus a budget quality line for a different group of prospects.

We have the special capability to send this information over the internet in the form the various search engines will use. The cost is modest and can dramatically improve traffic to your site.

6. Publicity releases should be sent to your industry trade publications. Again, incorporating reference material into your site enhances the interest of these publications to run your announcement. Preparing a release, and possibly including a photo, is not expensive and can be very effective.

How good is your website? Does it do its job? Is it effective? These are all good questions that every business owner and marketing manager needs to ask him or herself. The website has become an essential tool for business. We all know we have to have a website, but are we using this venue to its greatest advantage?

Most people responsible for their company’s websites have statistics packages and counters to tell them how many hits, how many unique visitors, where they are coming from, what their IP addresses are, and what browser they’re using. So what! Who cares? The real question is do we have an effective website?

Now if you have a transactional website, commonly referred to as an e-commerce site, you know the number of sales you are generating from your site, which is important, but do you really know how effective your site is? How many orders are you losing because of bad layout, awkward design, confusing navigation, and poor copy? How many potential clients have you chased away because you haven’t put a phone number on your site and an accessible real-person that can answer questions?

A website is your business’s public face. Big businesses can look like mom and pop operations, and mom and pop operations can look like General Motors. The design of your website should not be taken lightly, its budget should not be an afterthought, and the designer you hire should be someone who understands more than code. Your Web-designer should be a multimedia-marketing advisor, someone who can counsel you how best to deliver your marketing message, and someone who can go beyond technical issues.

You can spend a lot of money and have someone analyze your site for you, but are you really going to believe him, are you really going to act on their recommendations? You can’t sell somebody something they really don’t want - that may sound obvious, but believe me, sales people do it everyday. If you don’t think you need a new website, you aren’t going to spend the money to have one built. So the best way to tell if you need one is to analyze the one you already have, yourself.

Below is a set questions you can ask yourself. If you answer them honestly, you’ll know whether you need a new site or not. After you’ve gone through the process, ask some colleagues to do the same. See if your answers compare.

1. Does Your Website Have A Purpose?

Every website should have a clearly defined purpose. Having a website just because everyone else has one is not an acceptable strategy. What is your website’s purpose?

a. Transactional sales-oriented site
b. Customer service support site
c. How to instructional site
d. Product or service demonstration site
e. Lead generation site
f. Marketing, branding, positioning site
g. Promotional campaign site
h. Viral or buzz creation site

2. Is Your Website Focused?

Too many businesses, both large and small, use their website as an information junkyard, a dumping ground for everything they do, everything they’ve done, and everything they ever thought of doing. This won’t work. Customers are like children; they want clarity, direction, and unequivocal answers. Your website should be focused on a single function. URLs are cheap, there is no reason you can’t have different websites for every major thing you do, or every marketing campaign you initiate. How focused is your website?

3. How Functional Is Your Website?

Everybody knows that websites should be easy to use, that you shouldn’t have to drill-down too deep to find what you’re looking for, and of course everything should work. Your website is a communication tool. If your website doesn’t work properly, the only thing you’re communicating is incompetence. How functional is your website?

4. Does Your Website’s Construction Balance Competing Concerns?

Websites by their very nature are a compromise of competing issues. Aesthetics, multimedia, frame construction, HTML, Flash, client-side, server-side, data bases, SEO tactics, information architecture, marketing communication, transaction efficiency all compete for precedence in the design of a site. Are you sacrificing clarity, focus, and communication for SEO tricks and unattainable traffic numbers? Did you start with an IT solution like a database and build your site around a poorly conceived information delivery system. Does your website’s design reflect your sites’ defined business purpose or is it a result of secondary technical concerns?

5. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

Does your website represent and promote your marketing objectives? Okay, this is a trick question for many small owner-managed businesses. Marketing is not sales. Marketing is about communicating who you are, what you do, and why you do it better than the other guy. Marketing is about image building, branding, and positioning, in other words, enhancing your business personality. Does your website honestly reflect your business personality?

6. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

Too many websites bear no relation to the rest of their business’s marketing initiatives. Everything your company does should reflect an over-riding ethos, point-of-view, and personality. If your marketing collaterals don’t match your website presentation, you are confusing your audience. Is your Web-presentation integrated into your overall marketing plan?

7. Is content king on your website?

We’ve all heard the saying ‘content is king’. Is content king on your website? Does your website adequately display and explain what you do, what products you sell, and what services you provide? Are there examples of your work? Are there testimonials from your customers? Have you provided information on how to order, how to use, and how to resolve problems? Is content really king on your website?

8. Does your website have a distinctive look?

The notion of the flaming animated logo has become a cliché for bad design and style over substance, but that does not mean your website should be aesthetically boring and visually dreary. Your site should display clarity of vision; it should provide functional page layout; its use of colors, type, and visuals should be distinctive and purposeful. Your website should provide a defining “Look” that enhances your business personality. Does your website display a distinctive look that represents the true image of your business?

9. Do you list appropriate contact information on your website?

Websites are all about connecting you to your clients, not hiding from them. If you think you can put your website on autopilot and that a FAQ and Q&A are going to cut-it, you better think again. Does your website have adequate contact information? Do you list appropriate email addresses and phone numbers for the people responsible for various aspects of your business?

A domain name should be just as carefully selected as you would for a new baby in the family. It is a unique name just for your company’s use. It is your internet address. Usually written in lower case letters, it takes the form…www.yourname.com.

It is fairly simple for us to register your domain name. First, a number of acceptable names are prepared, and then we run a search to determine which ones may still be available. Then, after one is selected, we register that name with an international registry service. The cost is currently $35 per year.

There is also a small setup charge to “install” this name on our Internet hosting service’s computer.

THERE ARE A NUMBER OF ADVANTAGES TO HAVING YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME

1. You have a unique name that is yours alone to use as long as you maintain its registry. Even if you move your site to another hosting service, that name is still yours.

2. Because that name is permanently yours, you can feel free to promote it in your other advertising, on your stationery, anywhere at all without fear of it being changed or lost.

3. Customized e-mail addresses can be used for key people or departments which include your domain name. They are usually easier to remember. They would look like…john@yourname.com, or info@yourname.com. These are actually “fictitious or alias” e-mail addresses which would automatically be forwarded to each person’s real e-mail location. This means that if you changed from AOL to Earthlink, and they gave you a new e-mail address, we would then have John’s e-mail forwarded to his new Earthlink address. It sounds confusing, but is quite simple to accomplish.

4. And finally, the use of a domain name has perceived extra value to prospects. Firms that use an extension of someone else’s site are often thought of as smaller…more regional, and less professional.